Middle Income Countries, the new target for Big Pharma : ALCS Morocco & Act Up-Paris call on concerned countries to issue compulsory licencing without delay
Casablanca • Paris — A report released by MSF two weeks ago shows that the main pharmaceutical companies that hold most of the patents on medications used against HIV/AIDS are suspending their standardized "access" programs in Middle-Income Countries (MICs). Many of those countries are also becoming ineligible to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Once again, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and GSK (ViiV Healthcare) sacrifice the lives of people living with the diseases for their own profits. Companies must publish now the full list of their prices drug by drug and country by country. And concerned countries must without delay use their right to issue Compulsory Licenses (CLs), to break patents and to produce or import generics copies of these patented drugs.